7 Financial Skills Every 20-Year-Old Needs To Learn

When I read 20 Things 20 Year Olds Don’t Get, by Forbes contributor Jason Nazar, I immediately imagined parents frantically forwarding the post to their kids. Baby boomers, myself included, want our adult children to be successful in the workplace. But there’s an ulterior motive, as well … we want to retire someday!

Nine out of ten baby boomers provide some kind of financial support for their adult children according to an Ameriprise Across Generations study. Corporations worrying about a “retirement brain drain” may be doing so needlessly, since that won’t happen until boomers deal with the “money drain” in their own households.

When my 23-year-old son, Rick, was laid off from the job he landed right out of college, I was disappointed for him but not really worried. With the business’s billable hours dwindling for months and my son being the low man on the totem pole, he saw the layoff coming. When I got the call from him with his news, I was happy he’d gotten some great work experience from a top-notch consulting firm. What I didn’t worry about was money.

Unlike most Millennials, much less most Americans, he had six months of expenses in the bank. Granted, he was lucky since he only had one student loan to pay back while the average college student today is graduating with an average of $27,000 in debt. However, the most important thing Rick possessed was some serious skill when it came to managing his finances. You see, he had been in charge of his own cash since he was 10 years old. Because he was prepared, the layoff was a huge disappointment, but not a financial crisis—for him or for me.

Believe it or not, all Millennials can be as prepared as Rick was for financial stumbling blocks. To get there, what exactly do 20-year-olds need to “get” when it comes to their finances?

Here are seven financial skills or tools that can help them thrive going forward:

Be tight-fisted with your dollars. A single dollar can have incredible value.When was the last time you got fast food at the drive-thru? It may have been convenient, but it certainly wasn’t inexpensive. When you add grabbing coffee in the morning, a smoothie, fast food and a candy bar when you’re filling up your gas tank, these seemingly insignificant items can easily add up to $20 a day, $100 a week and $400 a month. That’s a car payment.

Obtain and keep a good credit score. A strong credit score can make all the difference between securing the apartment you want and losing out in a competitive rental market. In our case, we missed the boat on helping our kids establish credit early. This hampered them later when they wanted to move into their first apartments and get competitive interest rates when buying their first cars.

Parents can help their kids establish credit in several different ways. You can set up a joint credit card—for a specific use, like gas, if you want—while they are in college and pay the bill in full each month. You can also add your 20-year-old to an auto loan when purchasing a car. That way, when you make the payment each month, it will help build a positive credit history for him or her.

Helping your kids build credit early can help you avoid having to co-sign for a loan or apartment later.

Keep your overhead low. Subscription model pricing can help consumers keep upfront costs down. This can be a good thing as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. Sure, it’s nice to listen to Pandora without commercials and it seems like a bargain at $3.99 a month. But would you really shell out $48 if you had to hand over cash from your wallet just to have commercial-free internet radio for the year?

Consider this line of thinking with all recurring expenses we have today: cable TV, cell phones with data packages, satellite radio and internet. For entertainment we have
Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. These “necessities” can easily run upwards of $250 a month if you aren’t careful. Cut the ones that aren’t truly “needs” to keep your overhead low.

Switch to frugal mode. The ability to kick into “super-saver mode” for a stint is vital when unexpected expenses come up or income suddenly drops. This could involve skipping taxis and taking public transportation, bringing PB&J sandwiches to work, stretching hair care products, switching to basic cable and “go phones,” getting a roommate, ride sharing, going to free concerts, and skipping restaurants to have friends over instead (with a dish in hand)—whatever it takes to make ends meet. Frugal mode helps you avoid resorting to credit cards in a crunch.

Cook. Dining out can be expensive. People who don’t cook pay top dollar for meals. Cooking and financial planning may not seem like they go together, but people who cook can eat very inexpensively. You don’t have to be JamieOliver or Gordon Ramsay, but if you learn to cook three or four meals you enjoy and make them regularly, you can save thousands of dollars a year on food costs. Buy your ingredients on sale or in bulk. One meal turns into three when you make enough for another dinner and lunch the next day.

Choose the right roommate. What are the characteristics of a perfect roommate? At the top of the list is someone you can rely on to pay rent on time every month. Then you’d want someone who is clean, keeps to him- or herself and is never around! Before my kids were born, I rented out a room in my house to medical residents doing their rotations at the University of California, Davis Medical Center. Medical students were perfect roommates because they paid their rent on time and were interesting to talk to when they were around (which wasn’t often).

Sharing your space can be a huge boost for the budget, but you have to pick the right person or it can be a nightmare. If you think about it as a business arrangement rather than living with your best friends, you have a better chance settling into something sustainable.

Sock money away. Saving money byskipping a latte or bundling your cable and internet is one thing, but putting that savings in the bank and keeping your hands off itis another. Socking away money that you don’t touch is paramount to success. There are a couple of ways to ensure that this happens: You can set up an auto-draft from checking to savings, open a savings account at a different bank so you can’t easily transfer funds between accounts, or skip the debit card for your “don’t-touch” savings account. Do whatever it takes to make the savings stick.

Unfortunately, most Americans live on the edge when it comes to money. According to recent research by Bankrate.com, 76% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and a study from CashNetUSA reported that 46% of people surveyed had less than $800 saved for emergencies.

This lack of financial stability makes us all vulnerable. When an emergency hits and we get a call from a family member for help with a rent deposit or moving expenses, are we going to turn them away? Of course not. We are going to help, but those funds have to come from somewhere. When 20-year-olds can manage their cash, are able to borrow money at decent rates and live on 75% of their income by doing the above, that means financial security not just for them, but for the entire family.

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The opinions expressed are those of the author and may not be the views of LearnVest Planning Services LLC (“LVPS”), a registered investment adviser. The advice provided is not personalized investment advice, may not be suitable for your individual situation, are not guarantees of future performance and may differ materially from actual events that occur. The author and LVPS are not endorsing, sponsoring or responsible for errors or inaccuracies by third party sources and links on which the author reasonably relies.

I write about living well while transitioning to retirement, working in retirement and personal finance. We can have it all – a rewarding career and fulfilling personal life while planning for retirement.